Trust within Brazilian new economy organizations: an empirical investigation of gender effects benchmarked on Brazilian old economy organizations

Abstract

It has been suggested that one of the negative aspects of the New Economy has been growing organizational survival-risk both at the firm and the sector levels. This precarious positioning of the firm has profoundly changed the work environment resulting in the dissolution of job-definition-boundaries, thereby raising the intensity of work and finally affecting the level and nature of trust in the workplace. This is the starting point for our study. Using a questionnaire developed by Gillespie, we investigated gender profiles concerning trust in Supervisors, Peers, and Team in the New and the Old Economies for Brazilian managers. The results show that, for the New Economy, Brazilian women are more willing to give trust to Supervisors whereas Brazilian men expressed higher levels of trust when dealing with Team members. The Peer results are mixed. For the Old Economy, men uniformly express higher levels of trust compared to women over all three reference groups. Finally, for gender matched comparisons, those working in the Brazilian Old Economy firms express higher levels of trust compared to their counterparts in the New Economy independent of gender or time worked. We conclude by discussing the control implications of the above results.

Comparing trust levels of male and female managers: measurement invariance of the behavioural trust inventory

“…Latent factor mean analyses revealed no significant differences between males and females on the scales, suggesting that they show similar levels of trust after the biased item was removed. This finding is contrary to that of Zanini et al (2009) who reported gender differences in the levels of trust in the Brazilian study.…”

“…Findings provide support for a two-factor structure of the BTI consisting of reliance and disclosure. This finding is consistent with previous research conducted in Australia by Gillespie (2003) as well as in Brazil by Zanini et al (2009), thereby contributing to a broader base of evidence upon which to evaluate the validity and generalisability of the BTI. In assessing its measurement invariance across groups, configural and metric invariance and partial scalar invariance were established.…”

“…These researchers employed the BTI and computed the split-half reliability measure of Cronbach over three study groups which rendered statistically significant values ranging from .92 to .94. Zanini et al (2009) were also able to replicate the same factor configurations as were reported by Gillespie (2003). On Factor 1, the third question had the highest factor loading, and on Factor 2 the highest factor loading was reported for Question 8.…”

“…Few studies have unfortunately been conducted thus far; even in instances where the BTI was used, little or no information concerning its construct validity is provided, so it is impossible to draw detailed comparisons (for further information on the development and application of the BTI, see Burke et al (2007) and Lewicki et al (2006)). One exception is a study conducted by Zanini, Lusk, and Wolff (2009) in Brazil. These researchers employed the BTI and computed the split-half reliability measure of Cronbach over three study groups which rendered statistically significant values ranging from .92 to .94.…”